We want to have some study together now
in the book of Acts.
Reality in the book of Acts, you can
call this message.
There are many ways to study God's word.
There are many ways to present the truth
of God.
But tonight we especially want to dig right
into the text of the book of Acts.
We want to keep in mind our day
of prayer and fasting tomorrow.
And we see one of the most important
emphases in the book of Acts is the
emphasis on prayer.
And how God works through prayer.
We're going to see some of the other
emphases.
Some messages we hear new truths or important
truths.
And in other messages these truths are reconfirmed
as we see them even more in the
word of God.
And that's what we're going to do tonight.
And it's my prayer that during your time
on OM you really will get to know
the book of Acts.
Someone says this book is really the Acts
of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is referred to more than
50 times in the book of Acts.
And of course we see the work of
God being directed by the Holy Spirit.
It's one of the reasons we want to
spend a lot of time in prayer tomorrow.
To get more direction, more guidance from the
Holy Spirit.
We have many ideas.
We have many burdens.
But we want the Holy Spirit to guide
us.
Let's look at some verses from the text.
Of course we all know Acts 1.8.
We've probably read and studied it many times.
Let's read it again.
But ye shall receive power after the Holy
Spirit has come upon you, and ye shall
be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth.
How many have that memorized?
That's encouraging.
Because certainly that is a verse we all
want to know.
That is the final command and promise of
the Lord Jesus before he ascended into heaven.
Don't take time to turn to it, but
note 2 Corinthians 10.16 Where it speaks
about the regions beyond and going to where
the gospel had not been proclaimed.
And also Romans 15.20 Both of these
verses emphasize the regions beyond.
Last week we emphasized the five-fold vision
that God had given us in this work.
The subcontinent.
The Muslim world.
Europe.
The whole world through the ships.
And then the vision of literature and communication
through every method.
That's the biblical basis for that.
Here it is, right here.
Many of God's people that I'm involved in
teaching, because a lot of my ministry is
a teaching ministry, they've never seen these verses
in God's Word.
I've been praying through the new prayer cards
that have been just produced out in Australia.
Is it 62 or 68 countries?
They included a few more desperately unreached areas
in the uttermost parts of the earth.
And really, unless you see that the emphasis
of OM is a biblical emphasis, I wouldn't
want you to really get involved in all
this.
So they had this emphasis in the book
of Acts.
And believe me, they had some very interesting
mobilizations.
Notice, for example, Acts 8.1. Acts 8
.1. And Saul was consenting unto his death.
He was at the death of Stephen.
He agreed with the death of Stephen.
And at that time there was a great
persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem,
and they were all scattered abroad throughout the
regions of Judea, Samaria, except the apostles.
You can imagine when this persecution hit Jerusalem.
The mechanics were working around the clock to
get the vehicles ready to get out of
Jerusalem.
If you think that was the case, your
history lesson really was a bit mixed up.
Probably they had to take a train.
Probably they had to walk.
You can imagine just some of the hardships
and some of these difficulties they went through,
and yet how God used it to spread
his word.
That is a true picture of how God's
providence sometimes gets more accomplished than the perfect,
well-thought-through program.
Let's go back to chapter 1.
Acts 1.14. Let's read that verse.
These all continued with one accord in prayer,
supplication with the women, and marrying the mother
of Jesus and with his brethren.
From the earliest period in the church, we
find the importance of the prayer meeting.
We're living in a day when many churches
no longer have a prayer meeting.
Even good churches.
I think we're seeing come to pass that
which Tozer once said.
And you can pick up a free copy
of Gems from Tozer tomorrow on the free
literature table in the office.
And you can pick up a free copy
of Gems from Tozer on the free literature
table in the office.
And it's a good book to meditate on
every day.
When the Holy Spirit left many churches, no
changes would be made whatsoever.
Everything would go on as usual.
And if the Holy Spirit leaves operation mobilization,
that the whole thing will completely fold up.
And the Holy Spirit is calling us to
prayer.
I don't know if you've ever taken time
to study the prayer life of Jesus Christ.
Here's some references you can look up tomorrow.
Prayer at his baptism, Luke 3, 21.
Luke 3, 21.
Just write the reference.
Prayer on his first preaching tour, Mark 1,
35.
Prayer at his first healing, Luke 5, 16.
Prayer at the choice of the twelve, Luke
6, 12.
Prayer before feeding 5,000, Matthew 14, 19.
After Peter's confession or before it, Luke 9,
18.
9, 18.
Before the transfiguration, Luke 9, 28.
Before the transfiguration, Luke 9, 18.
Matthew 4, 25.
Prior to the Lord's prayer, Luke 11, 1.
Luke 11, 1.
Before the Lord's prayer.
At the resurrection of Lazarus, John 11.
At the blessing of the children, Matthew 19,
13.
At the coming of the Greeks, John 12,
27.
At the Lord's Supper, Matthew 26, 26.
Prayer for Peter, Luke 22, 32.
Prayer for the Holy Spirit, John 14, 16.
Prayer on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24,
30.
Prior to his ascension, Luke 24, 50.
The Lord's prayer.
The high priestly prayer, the chapter, the 17th
chapter of John.
We find also the Lord Jesus' prayer.
It rang through the entire night.
Recorded in the book of Luke.
And as I made this study on the
prayer life of Jesus Christ.
My heart just cried out.
Why don't Christians pray?
Why don't they come to the prayer meeting?
Why don't they have family prayer?
We all go around claiming our greatest goal
is to become more like Jesus Christ.
Yet when it comes to the practical level,
we don't want to do that which he
did.
I believe we need more spontaneous prayer.
As we walk down the streets.
Sometimes I'm walking with a brother.
I just start to talk to the Lord.
First time I do that, it tends to
scare the person a little bit.
But what do I have to do?
Do I have to take a prayer mat
out?
Bow down, put water on my head and
pray to the God?
He says we're to call him friends.
We're no longer just his servant.
We are his friends.
And I like this little notice that's up
here.
Somebody changed it.
Prayer changes things.
Let's look at some more verses in the
book of Acts.
Look at those verses at the end of
Acts chapter 2.
I've dwelt on these before, so I want
to cover them quickly right now.
What are the emphasis we see here?
We see an emphasis on prayer.
There in verse 42.
We see an emphasis on fellowship.
We see an emphasis on the breaking of
bread.
We see an emphasis on sound doctrine.
Acts 2.
Verses 42 through 47.
I want you to make sure you get
that.
Study those verses.
We also see unselfishness.
We see this spirit-based unselfishness coming into
their lives.
Notice verse 45.
And they sold their possessions and goods and
parted them to all men as every man
had need.
We find this later in Acts chapter 4.
Barnabas even brought his house and his lands,
sold it for the cause of the gospel.
This was not a legalism.
This was not communism.
This was reality.
There was a need.
People were sensing their need.
And they were a caring community, not a
conglomerated congregation.
Perhaps they had heard, it's more blessed to
give than to receive.
So this was an emphasis in the book
of Acts.
And then there was an emphasis on praise.
Notice verse 47.
Praising God.
And having favor with all the people.
And then the Lord added to the church.
Doesn't talk about decisions for Christ in the
book of Acts.
Talks about the Lord adding to the church.
Notice over in Acts chapter 7.
Chapter 6.
Verse 1 and verse 7.
What does it say?
In those days, when the number of the
disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of
the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows
were neglected in the daily distribution.
Verse 7.
The number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem.
Our ministry is not a ministry of collecting
decisions.
Our ministry is a ministry of making disciples.
Now Acts chapter 6 actually is a very
important chapter.
Because we find that they had to choose
some deacons, some practical men for the work
in the church.
So that the main spiritual leaders would not
all be just caught up in all the
practical things, the serving of the tables it
refers to.
There in verse 2.
Now notice the qualifications for these practical men.
This is important because many of you are
going to be involved in a practical ministry.
The people in the practical ministry in Bromley
enable me to give more time to the
ministry of the word and prayer, which I
should be doing.
But that job is very important.
Look at the qualifications.
Verse 3.
We want 7 men of honest report.
They've got a good testimony.
And it is absolutely biblical that we write
to your churches and find out if we
can get a good report concerning you before
you are brought into even a training program
such as this.
Number 2, full of the Holy Spirit.
Number 3, wisdom.
Pretty heavy qualifications for men that are just
going to serve tables.
God's qualifications are high.
And I don't think we have any privilege
to lower them.
And this is one of the reasons we
believe that training programs are so important.
Especially when in many churches, not all, but
in many churches these principles of discipleship are
not taught to the young people.
Of course it's interesting, Stephen was one of
those men.
Verse 5, a man full of faith.
What do we find Stephen doing in the
7th chapter?
We find him preaching in the open air.
And we feel this.
Even though your work throughout the week is
practical work, we feel that as Stephen on
the weekends and other times you should be
out evangelizing.
This is a biblical principle and it is
a principle of this movement.
And it's one of the toughest principles that
we have.
Even to the point that you will find
some leaders who have been paralyzed and brought
into a state in which they are no
longer involved in this kind of evangelism, even
leaders.
It's not your job to judge them.
First of all they may be doing it
in a time when others may not even
notice it.
But I think we as leaders need your
prayers.
Because sometimes after 10, 20 years the evangelistic
zeal for the streets and the doors and
the tracks, it can begin to grow a
little cold and so many other things crowd
into our time and we find that this
is neglected.
And after 20 years the zeal for the
doors and the tracks and the free gatherings
can slowly become cold and so many other
things take away our time and we need
your prayers.
I would like to say in my own
situation.
It's often been a nervous battle to get
out.
I told God if I couldn't get out
in evangelism I didn't want to preach anymore.
I don't want to tell people to do
what I'm not doing myself.
And hardly a week ever passes when I'm
not in the streets with my tracts and
with my books and whatever other method.
Tell you of all the things I've done
this year preaching to many great crowds, the
greatest blessings have come sometimes in the door
-to-door work.
And especially when I went along door-to
-door with my own wife, something we had
neglected for a long time.
One of the first dates I ever had
with her, long before we were married, the
first or second date, we just went door
-to-door.
The third date and the five dates after
that, we studied the book of Acts.
After that we went out into the streets
in tract distribution.
Then we used to have our dates in
a bus station in Chicago.
We would call this watch and pray.
She would pray and watch me and I
would go out and witness and try to
lead people to Christ in the bus station.
Now I have to make a confession, after
we got engaged, and I was a little
bit strict on the physical side of things,
so though it was totally contrary to everything
within me, I decided not to kiss her
until we got engaged.
And so then we used to go to
the bus station and there was a very
good place behind the baggage lockers.
I just thought I should share that so
you'd know that I had the balance.
How I yearned that all of us in
the work would not lose our zeal and
our discipline to be involved even as Stephen,
a practical man, out in face-to-face
evangelism.
This kind of evangelism is absolutely basic to
the book of Acts.
Look at the last few verses of chapter
five.
Chapter five, verse forty-two, beaten, in verse
forty.
They were told not to speak any more,
and yet they went right back, and it
says in verse forty-two, daily in the
temple, in every house, they ceased not to
teach and preach Jesus Christ.
This is just one of many verses.
Look at Acts seventeen, seventeen.
Here we see the Apostle Paul, who was
a busy man, and yet we find him
in the marketplace.
What does it say?
Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the
Jews and with the devout persons, and in
the marketplace daily with them that met with
him.
We have the same emphasis in Acts twenty
-twenty.
We see the public ministry and the house
-to-house ministry.
And then we see it also in chapter
twenty, verse thirty-one, where we really see
the compassion and the reality in the life
of Paul.
Therefore, watch and remember that for the space
of three years, I have ceased not to
warn everyone night and day with tears.
Night and day, tears, compassion, action.
This is the emphasis we find in the
early church.
Another emphasis and another reality we must not
miss.
Another prayer meeting in Acts four-thirty-one.
Acts four-thirty-one.
Another verse worth memorizing.
When they had prayed, the place was shaken
where they were assembled together.
They were filled with the Holy Spirit, and
they spoke the word of God with boldness.
I believe if we are going to do
what God wants us to do this year,
we need Holy Ghost boldness in this work.
That we may go fearlessly, not foolishly, but
fearlessly out and declare His name.
I started speaking in the open air, I
guess when I was about seventeen, I was
scared stiff.
I was converted in fifty-five in a
one-night stand, villagrame meeting, and by fifty
-seven I was hiring buses and taking all
my friends into the crusade.
And I remember it was so full we
couldn't get in.
And so we went out and we spoke
in the open air, right in the center
of 42nd Street, New York City.
And God just gave us the courage to
open our mouths.
I used to go down into the New
York City underground.
I remember once going in with about fifteen
thousand tracks.
There were two of us.
Actually I almost got killed that day by
an underground train.
But we'd start on one end of the
train, we'd go right through the entire train,
and everybody, by the time we were finished,
half of them were sitting there reading the
word of God.
These were not things we did after five
years of training or after going on OM.
We had just been born again.
I was only seventeen.
But the Holy Spirit gave that burden and
that zeal to evangelize every day, everywhere, whatever
the cost.
I then started to go into the jails
and preaching in the jail.
And we saw some converted.
And God, I believe, wants to give us
Holy Ghost bonus.
Now, we're not all going to be the
same.
We don't believe everyone goes around doing exactly
the same thing.
And we don't expect everybody to go running
through the underground giving out tracks.
But everybody can do something.
According as God gives you the grace.
Even now my approach probably is more to
sit next to someone and just give one
track out and try to speak to that
person rather than maybe blitz the whole train.
Because I want to use most of my
tracks out in India.
And so I'm very conservative in Europe.
And of course when I get to India,
we change the strategy.
You'll find this word boldness, you may not
like it, but you'll find it coming up
again and again and again in the book
of Acts.
Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?
That's the will of God.
It's not necessarily a spectacular thing.
It may be by crisis, it may be
by process.
But we need to know by His grace
we are filled with His Holy Spirit.
We can't go out and do this work
in our own strength.
And this is what we need if we're
going to do it.
The reality, the power, the fullness of the
Holy Spirit.
And I think of half the world waiting
to hear the gospel for the first time.
And then I get reports back from some
of our countries on how few people are
being reached for Christ.
I sometimes wonder, what in the world are
we doing there?
If we have a united spirit-filled effort
in OM this year, I believe we could
reach twice as many people for Christ in
1980 as we had last year.
And I want to say to you leaders,
I don't get to speak to you much,
but if you don't do everything you can
to reach men before it's too late in
your lands, you are going to stand before
Jesus Christ.
Forget about me, that's no problem.
You will stand before Jesus Christ and give
account for what you are doing in your
countries.
God has set before us an open door.
Let us go forward in Book of Acts
reality, and in Book of Acts power, and
make use of every opportunity.
Of course, there's another thing that we see
in the Book of Acts, and that's that
the devil attacks.
When there's a united effort for Christ, the
enemy attacks.
Right there in Chapter 5 we have Ananias,
Ananias and Sapphira.
A story of deception.
A story of hypocrisy.
Where two people, as an example for us,
were stricken dead.
And it's over possessions.
Not because they didn't sell all their possessions.
That's not the problem.
And this shows the priority.
Our hearts.
Because their sin was that they deceived, they
lied, they gave a false impression, and therefore
lied against the Holy Spirit.
Of course, there's another emphasis in Acts, and
that's the emphasis on prison.
The prison ministry.
In Chapter 4 they were in prison.
In Chapter 5 they were in prison.
Chapter 12 they were in prison.
Chapter 16 they were in prison.
Not quite the Holiday-ian lifestyle this was.
Some of our leading Christian men now, when
they arrive in London, they book into the
Hotel Hilton.
$100 a night.
Dr. Great Christian Group recently had a convention
there.
Hundreds of them, $100 a night, there they
are.
They spend more in one night than we
spend here, for everybody, in two weeks.
Well, these things personally confuse me.
Because I know God still loves those people.
And I know God uses them.
But I know He could use them so
much more, if they had a little more
of this.
Maybe Paul had a line-up, man, I
don't know.
Go ahead to the next city.
Check out the jail, see, you know what
the facilities are.
Somehow, maybe I'm wrong, when I look at
God's people in the Book of Acts, and
then when I look at God's people today,
somehow it seems we are moving in different
directions.
Of course, there are many other things emphasized
in this book.
The miracles in answer to prayer.
The people who are healed in answer to
prayer.
Somebody once said, O.M. doesn't believe in
healing, does it?
That doesn't make any sense.
The Germans especially have trouble with this doctrine.
But I just want to tell you in
O.M. we believe in healing.
And what we don't believe in is a
circus.
And sometimes what takes place in something that's
supposed to be a meeting for Christian gospel,
it is more like a circus than it
is a spiritual meeting.
I would like everyone this year to read
Dr. Francis Schaeffer's wife's book, Edith Schaeffer's book
on suffering, on affliction.
And I hope that will be in every
O.M. library worldwide.
And let us in O.M. in a
loving and careful and compassionate way continue in
prayer for the sick and for the physical
healing of people as God enables and as
we meet them.
And let us realize that several decades of
history or a hundred years of history also
proves that God wonderfully uses doctors and that
he has entrusted to doctors and Christian doctors
skills that we are foolish not to make
use of just as we use microphones and
electricity and other things that they didn't have
in the book of Acts.
Then we see in the book of Acts
this great emphasis on missionary work.
We see the emphasis on the local church
as a church was born in Antioch in
chapter 11.
And then that church sent out workers and
they started churches in other places.
And what an exciting, fast-moving missionary book
this is.
And we see God not only saving people
but they come together in living fellowships.
Not in church buildings.
To me this was one of the greatest
mistakes of history when the emphasis shifted from
living fellowships of people meeting anywhere they could
to building beautiful buildings that they thought would
express the glory of God, the buildings.
Now these buildings are all over the place.
And of course I believe there are many,
many living, wonderful believers who meet in great
buildings.
And we are committed to working with the
historic church.
I have a message here I won't be
able to give you because I won't be
speaking that much next week.
It's called reasons why we are committed to
working with the historic church.
Ten reasons.
That's our commitment.
But we know that in the book of
Acts the church was in homes and the
church spread.
And many of the churches that we are
involved in planting in India and other places
they are in homes.
You can be sure that we in OM
are not going to be involved in building
any church buildings.
In any case after we start a church
we do not care for that church.
We always do this in connection with other
missionaries or other church leaders and then they
have to battle on with their local leaders
and set the course for that local fellowship.
Notice 13 verse 2.
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted
the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and
Saul for the work unto which I have
called them.
You can get a concordance and you can
find many many other references for fasting.
You may want to look at some of
those references tomorrow.
Verse 3.
And when they had fasted and prayed and
laid their hands on them they sent them
away.
Jesus said, After I leave then you shall
fast.
There's not time tonight to go into detail
about this.
But prayer and fasting is a time to
give ourselves in an extra way to God.
Tomorrow a lot of the prayer you will
be off on your own.
Go off to a park or find a
quiet place and pray and fast.
Some are eating, no problem.
During meal times we will be praying together
in this room.
And we believe this is biblical and that
it's going to help in our spiritual preparation
and in knowing God's will for the coming
weeks.
This kind of work that we are doing
even financially it cost 5 to 10 times
as much as it did 15 years ago.
Yet the amount of support we ask people
to trust God for has maybe only increased
2 or 3 times in the past years.
And so this means generally as a body
we have to trust God for a miracle
if we are going to go into another
year.
We've had phone calls today.
Bangladesh.
That wasn't today, that was some days ago.
London.
Other places.
They are needing the finance to get on
with the work.
And there has been very little.
The fuel for the ship is not paid
for.
We have even discussed today the possibility of
the ship having to remain in Brazil.
But it isn't really the ship, it's 300
people whose ministry is involved on that ship.
And I believe through prayer and fasting we
can see a breakthrough in this area of
finance.
They were in a spiritual warfare in the
book of Acts.
You can study more on your own tomorrow.
May this emphasis be our emphasis.
May this vision be our vision.
It's not going to happen overnight.
There will be many battles.
But it can happen.
Some of us who are here, we have
been seeing it 10, 15, 20 years.
We know God works the same way today
as he worked 2,000 years ago.
Hebrews says Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today
and forevermore.
Let's believe it.
Let's keep it in balance as we have
talked about already a lot.
Let's believe it.
Let us pray.
Oh Father, we praise you for this book.
We thank you for these examples.
This book of Acts' reality.
We thank you that this can flow through
our spiritual life.
Lord, in ourselves we feel weak.
We feel inadequate.
We sense our inconsistencies.
We fall at your feet.
And we ask, oh Lord, that we may
know a greater crucifixion of our own will
and our own flesh.
As we move forward in this great worldwide
spiritual invasion.
For we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.